gridComm Launches Intelligent, Cloud-Based Street Lighting Solution

SINGAPORE--(Marketwired - Sep 23, 2014) - Cities around the globe spend as much as 40 percent of their energy budgets on street lighting. Lighting accounts for almost 6 percent of global CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. What if there was a way to both cut costs and drive down emissions? Enter gridComm, a provider of power line communications (PLC) solutions that enable the transformation of the power grid into a smart grid. Today, gridComm announced the launch of its Intelligent Street Lighting Solution.

Field-proven for robustness and reliability, gridComm's Intelligent Street Lighting Solution serves as the cornerstone in the building of a 'Smart City' with a reduced carbon footprint. Based on the company's GC2200, a next generation OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) PLC transceiver, gridComm's Intelligent Street Lighting Solution transforms street lighting into energy-aware, remotely managed and monitored networks.

"Our Intelligent PLC Street Lighting Solution enables users to manually or automatically switch lights on or off, and set dimming levels remotely from the control office," said Mike Holt, CEO of gridComm. "This gives the user the ability to efficiently deliver the appropriate lighting level based on predetermined schedules required by time of day, season, weather conditions, or in response to emergencies. It also conveniently presents critical street light information via the Internet, placing details such as power consumption (eg. kWh, Input/Output voltage and current), map location and operational status (on, off, dimming levels, failures, downtime, etc.) right at a user's fingertips. These features help increase productivity and reduce operational costs, which are both critical requirements when building Smart Cities."

The new solution's system accommodates multiple lighting technologies including LED, High Pressure Sodium Vapor and Metal Halide luminaires, and can be retrofitted to current lighting systems, as well as installed in new lighting systems. gridComm's Intelligent Street Lighting Solution also supports mixed lighting technologies on any given network.

The core elements in the design of the Intelligent Street Lighting Solution are gridComm's GC8800 PLC module contained in a Digital Power Supply (DPS), the GC9300 Master Light Controller (MLC) and the Street Light Management Software (SLMS).

gridComm's Intelligent Street Lighting Solution has already been successfully deployed at the China-ASEAN EXPO Center (CAEXPO) compound in China. "CAEXPO is an iconic venue for holding international trade exhibitions," noted Michael Wang, R&D director of Shenzhen Mei Ji Xing Digital Power Supply Ltd. "The ability of gridComm's Intelligent Street Lighting Solution to reliably and remotely monitor the street light conditions in the vicinity helps improve productivity tremendously. Now, maintenance crews don't need to manually check for faulty lights, and lights can be dimmed based on pre-defined schedules, which also helps save energy after midnight -- a crucial step in building a greener environment."

About gridCommgridComm provides the systems and devices that enable the transformation of the electricity grid into a smart grid. By connecting utilities to their customers, gridComm's chips help to transform homes into energy-aware "smart homes" that react to conditions on the grid, thus implementing a worldwide communications network based on the existing power grid. gridComm is headquartered in Singapore. For more information, visit www.gridcomm-plc.com